Burnet, Kelsay, Neal, and others of the preachers, struck up an old tune, voice after voice joined in the melody until it swelled into a mighty volume of sacred song.  I noticed that the faces of many were wet with tears, and there was an indescribable pathos in their voices.  The pitying God, amid the rapturous hallelujahs of the heavenly hosts, bent to listen to the music of these broken harps.  This text was announced, My peace I give unto you; and, the sermon began.

Among those standing nearest to me was “Old Kelley,” a noted patient whose monomania was the notion that he was a millionaire, and who spent most of his time in drawing checks on imaginary deposits for vast sums of money.  I held one of his checks for a round million, but it has never yet been cashed.  The old man pressed up close to me, seeming to feel that the success of the service somehow depended on him.  I had not more than fairly begun my discourse, when he broke in: 

“That’s Daniel Webster!”

I don’t mind a judicious “Amen,” but this put me out a little.  I resumed my remarks, and was getting another good start, when he again broke in enthusiastically: 

“Henry Clay!”

The preachers standing around me smiled—­I think I heard one or two of them titter.  I could not take my eyes from Kelley, who stood with open mouth and beaming countenance, waiting for me to go on.  He held me with an evil fascination.  I did go on in a louder voice, and in a sort of desperation; but again my delighted hearer exclaimed: 

“Calhoun!”

“Old Kelley” spoiled that sermon, though he meant kindly.  He died not long afterward, gloating over his fancied millions to the last.

“If you have steady nerves, come with me and I will show you the worst case we have—­a woman half tigress, and half devil.”

Ascending a stairway, I was led to an angle of the building assigned to the patients whose violence required them to be kept in close confinement.

“Hark! don’t you hear her?  She is in one of her paroxysms now.”

The sounds that issued from one of the cells were like nothing I had ever heard before.  They were a series of unearthly, fiendish shrieks, intermingled with furious imprecations, as of a lost spirit in an ecstasy of rage and fear.

The face that glared upon me through the iron grating was hideous, horrible.  It was that of a woman, or of what had been a woman, but was now a wreck out of which evil passion had stamped all that was womanly or human.  I involuntarily shrunk back as I met the glare of those fiery eyes, and caught the sound of words that made me shudder.  I never suspected myself of being a coward, but I felt glad that the iron bars of the cell against which she dashed herself were strong.  I had read of Furies—­one was now before me.  The bloated, gin-inflamed face, the fiery-red, wicked eyes, the swinish chin, the tangled coarse hair falling around her like writhing snakes, the tiger-like clutch of her dirty fingers, the horrible words—­the picture was sickening, disgust for the time almost, extinguishing pity.